The Dog Issue

Last weekend I was at a party at my brother's house. He had the predictable guest list, a bunch of booze-pounding boys. I was there with my sister-in-law (attached to another, more tame brother) and we were enjoying our vodka sodas out of TPB rock glasses when low and behold another woman entered the scene. She was a cute, skinny little brunette who started, quite quickly, to rattle on about animal rights. After hearing that I had worked in Korea she immediately responded with the fact that she could never travel there because they treated animals poorly, more specifically, that Koreans and in fact all East Asians would eat any old thing including cats, dogs, tarantulas and rats -- all four of which she claimed to own as pets. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I rarely talk about my thoughts on Korea in any great detail but this was a little much...do most people think this? Does PETA really publish that on their e-newsletters?

Fair enough. Eating dog meat soup in Korea is an old, established custom. Granted, it is almost exclusively done by older males. The meat is expensive, not easily accessible and limited to one specific breed of dog. The nutrients from the dog are supposed to increase male stamina or something. I honestly never sat at a meal where it was offered and families didn't roast Lassie up for Sunday dinner. In fact, most of the younger adults I met were appalled by the practice and were embarrassed by its existence.

My response to the petite vegan lady was that killing dogs in Korea was probably not any worse than what we do here in North America, which is brutally slaughtering thousands and thousands of cattle, swine and poultry and injecting them with mood-altering hormones. I also told her that as for eating cats, rats and spiders... never saw it...

Just between us... Koreans do relish this snack called bungdaegi (silkworm larvae),which is sold in vender stalls on the street. It looks, smells and tastes pretty rank. But hell, it's certainly healthier than our version of fast food.